The drivers of the Overland coaches received from one hundred and fifty to two hundred and fifty dollars a month, and their keep.  Their wages were graduated by their ability and length of service.  Such large salaries were paid because of the great risk run by the brave men, for their duty was a continuously hazardous one.

All classes of men were to be found among these drivers, from the graduate of Yale and Harvard to the desperado deep-dyed in his villainy.  The latter sometimes enlisted in the work for the sole purpose of robbery.  The stage with its valuable load of riches and the wealth of its passengers excited his cupidity.

It is told in the annals of those troublous times on the Old Trail, how once, in July, 1865, a coach loaded with seven passengers and an immense amount of gold bullion and other treasure was sacrificed to these robbers.  The passengers were all frontier men, well used to the contingencies of that trying era; they were also aware of the strong probability of the coach being attacked before it reached its destination, and were prepared to repel any premeditated attempt of that character.  All were fully armed, principally with double-barrelled guns loaded with twenty-six buckshot, a formidable charge with which to plug a man.  They were determined that their hard-earned wealth should not be taken from them without a struggle.  They watched in turns for the first demonstration of the road agents, having made up their minds to get the first crack at the thieves.

The driver was known as Frank Williams, and the man who occupied the post of honour, sitting at his right on the box, was one of the would-be robbers.  On arriving at a very lonely spot on the trail, this individual on top cried out that the robbers were upon them, and a hurried shot was fired from the outside.  At the same moment the men inside discharged their pieces.  A regular volley was then shot at the passengers from an ambush alongside the trail, four fell dead, another was severely wounded in three places, and one saved his life by lying perfectly still and feigning death as the thieves emerged from the brush to fire a second time.  One of the other passengers was mortally wounded and the other escaped uninjured by secreting himself in the brush which fringed the trail.

It seems that the driver had purposely engaged in the service of the company for just such an opportunity as this, and he deliberately drove his coach into this sequestered spot where the robbers were to attack it by appointment.  It is alleged that he received his share of the spoils, and then left the service incontinently.  His ill-gotten wealth, however, did him very little good; for he was tracked to Denver, and hanged with that sudden promptness for which “Judge Lynch’s Court” is noted, a court that brooks no delay in the execution of its decisions, and from which there is no appeal.

Over seventy thousand dollars was the harvest of this raid, but none of the robbers were ever caught excepting the driver, upon whom, as stated, a well-merited punishment was inflicted.